Socktober and what's next for 5A?

      We are so happy to share with you the overwhelming success we had for Socktober. THANK YOU to each and every family who donated for those less fortunate than ourselves. I wish I could describe how happy and proud the students were when they delivered the socks, gloves, shirts and personal care items to the Mission Shelter. 

Click here for all of the pictures from today!

     The students were feeling so happy and proud to do something so kind for others. They couldn’t be more excited to help our community again. We live in the world's wealthiest nation. Yet 14.5 percent of U.S. households—nearly 49 million Americans, including 15.9 million children—struggle to put food on the table.

     Throughout the month of November we will be doing a food drive to collect non-perishable food items for the hungry in our community. We will be donating these items to the Bristol Salvation Army Food Bank just in time for the Thanksgiving Holiday. According to Feeding America, the most needed items are Canned Soup, Peanut Butter, Canned Meats, Cereal, Canned Fruit, Dried Fruit, Macaroni & Cheese, and Canned Vegetables. Many items can be purchased at the Dollar Store for just $1.00!

On Wednesday, November 26^th we will be donating our collection to the Bristol Salvation Army Food Bank on 19 Stearns St.

For more information or other ways to help, visit these websites:

Bread For the World – www.bread.com

Feeding America – www.FeedingAmerica.org

Create the Good – www.CreateTheGood.org

Move for Hunger – www.MoveForHunger.org 

The Salvation Army – ctri.salvationarmy.org

Thank you in advance for your help!

Harvest Day

Today was Harvest Day at INELC and we had a great time! We started by building our very own scarecrow. Everyone had a turn to stuff the scarecrow full of hay to create his body. The students decided to name the scarecrow Jobo, you can see him in the museum on the second floor!

We also explored, predicted and observed what the inside of a pumpkin looks like. We said it was "squishy, slimy, and yellow." After cleaning out all of the insides, we separate the seeds so Mrs. Strahowski could bake them for our afternoon snack.  We look forward to trying them this afternoon!

Please check out the full gallery of pictures here.

Socktober

Greetings Room 5A families!

            Every night in the United States an estimated 600,000 people live on the streets. With inspiration from Kid President from the Hub Network on television, we want to prove that even the smallest acts of love, like donating a pair of socks, can make a big difference in the lives of our neighbors who are homeless.

Throughout the whole month of October, which we are now calling “SOCKTOBER”, our classroom is studying a unit on People, Places and Community. Classroom 5A will be hosting a sock drive to display empathy and compassion for those less fortunate here in our city of Bristol. Please help us by collecting socks as well as other non-perishable items (gloves, hats, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, combs or anything else) for the homeless men, women and children in our community.

On Monday, November 3^rd our classroom will be taking a walk to our local shelter. St. Vincent De Paul Mission Shelter is located at 19 Jacobs Street, we will talk the 10 minute walk, weather permitting, to deliver the items we have collected.

Please do not feel like you have to spend a lot of money to help. Every little bit helps and this is an excellent opportunity to teach your children about the importance of compassion and love for others! For example, the Dollar Store has many of the items we are looking to collect for just $1! You child will feel excited and proud to help others.

Thank you so much for your support! Get ready to spread some love!

For more information, please visit http://soulpancake.com/socktober/

Mrs. Scapellati and Ms. Zukauskas

Building School Community

The past three weeks of school have been about building school community. During morning meeting we have been sharing pictures of everyone's family and discussing similarities and differences. The students were very eager to share their pictures of their families with their peers. During center time, the students used legos to build their homes and explored skin tones with colored pencils while drawing their families and themselves. The class explored their sense of hearing by using our sensory bottles and making predictions of what was inside. The science center has set up where students could experiment the sounds different materials made inside tin cans. Our students enjoyed using our sensory table with the water balls inside. Next week we will be expanding to learn about the Bristol community and what we could find in any community. We're learning the rules, being responsible with jobs and interacting with our peers.

We have been introducing our Kimochis slowly to help your children express their emotions and begin to understand that other children have feelings too. We have been exploring simple emotions like happy, mad, and sad. We encourage families to have children express how they are feeling when they are showing signs of being upset. As we progress with the kimochis, your children will be learning new vocabulary when it comes to emotions, such as, frustrated, left out, and optimistic. 

We would like to remind all families about our classroom rules: be safe, be kind and be responsible. If you would like to use the rules at home, please feel free to use the rule signs we have posted. Click the link to download the Three Rules for Everyone from our Dropbox!


Look for fliers about our Bring Your Family to School Day. We are excited to have all of you in the classroom to explore and experiment with your children.

As usual, we have uploaded our pictures to our Google+ account, please feel free to save and share them with others!

Our first week of school

Our first week of school was lots of fun! We learned about each other and the classroom.

We would like to welcome all the new families joining our classroom and welcome back to those who are returning for another year. We have some exciting things planned for this year and look forward to having everyone along for the ride! Please check out our calendar to see what we have planned.

Pictures from our first week of school can be found here.

Achievement Day

Thank you to all of our 5A families for a wonderful school year! We look forward to working with some of you again next year and we wish lots of luck to the students leaving for Kindergarten!

See out pictures from Achievement Day here. If you have any pictures you would like to share with us please let a teacher know, thank you!

Our last post for the school year will be next week, we will be uploading our favorite memories in pictures from this year, check back next week!

Hot Air Balloon

Our students are working very hard on their hot air balloon! Please check the pictures here.

Please come check out the grand opening of our renovated museum with the hot air balloon display on September 20th! Purchase tickets for the gala here.

Don't forget our Achievement day celebration is on THURSDAY, AUGUST 14th from 6-8PM.
Please check our calendar for a full list of scheduled events.